Outline for chapters 1 and 2
Chapter 1
I. The Realist Paradigm
A). Realism
1). Pursuit of power
2). Competition
3). Military/material capabilities
4). Violence
B). Human nature realists or classical realists
C). Structural realists or neo-realists
1). Anarchy
2). Sovereignty
3). Rational unitary actors
4). Self help
5). Security dilemma
6). War is inevitable
7). Balance of power
a). Balancing versus bandwagoning
8). Power triumphs justice
9). Politics and ethics
10). Cooperation and change
III. Liberalism
A). Idealism versus realism
B). Liberalism
1). Cooperation is possible
2). Absolute gains versus relative gains
3). Confidence building measures
C). Kant’s Perpetual Peace
2). Federation of free states
2). Commerce
3). Republicanism
D). Liberal Institutionalism
1). International institutions mitigate realist anarchy
2). International Organizations
E). Liberal Commercialism
1). “Spirit of commerce”
2). Capitalist peace
3). Economic globalization
F). Liberal Internationalism
1). “Republicanism”
2). Expanding democracies around the world
3). Democratic Peace Theory
G). The Kantian Triangle
1). Security dilemma replaced with “virtuous circle”
IV. Constructivism
A). The “Constructivist turn” after the Cold War
B). Constructivist tenets:
1). Structure is not all determining
a). Anarchy is what states make of it
b). Role of human agency
2). Norms and ideas
3). Individuals and non-state actors
V. Feminism
A) Feminist arguments:
1). Men dominate the conduct and study of world politics
2). Women with political authority would change the conduct of international
relations
3). Realism as a gendered perspective
a). IR theorists and gender
4) Foreign policy-making as a male perspective
5) Feminism and other theories of IR
VI. Neo-Marxism
A). Rise of communism in 20th century
B). Shares many assumptions with realism
1). Structural determinism
2). Pessimism
C). Diverges from realism
1). national interests (realism) versus economic interests (neo-Marxism)
2). Economics drives politics, not the other way around
Chapter 2
II. 1648: The Birth of the State System
A. The Nation-state
1. The nation
a. Group of people who, due to shared historical experiences, have a shared sense of identity called nationalism
b. Nationalism
i. People who have or seek a state of their own
2. The state
a. Political union able to exercise effective governance and control over a well-defined piece of territory and its population
3. The nation-state
a. State that exists to provide territory and governance for a group of people who see themselves as a single nation
B. Europe in the Seventeenth Century
1. City-states
a. Overlapping, localized political units with competing claims of territory
b. Included host of tiny territories
i. Under the authority of princes, bishops, barons, and trade guilds
2. Holy Roman Empire
a. Claimed authority over all modern central Europe
b. Advances in industry and technology rendered tiny political units obsolete
i. Military technology
ii. Import of gunpowder and weapons
iii. Monarchs used new weapons to amalgamate small political units
c. Legitimacy of empire and monarchs based on Catholic Pope’s authority
d. Protestant Reformation
i. Led to schisms of Catholicism vs. Protestant sects
ii. Sects didn’t recognize Catholic Pope’s imperial rule
3. Thirty Years War
a. Reworking of European territories and emergence of medium-sized state
C. Peace of Westphalia
1. Emergence of modern sovereignty
a. Sovereign states and nations largely limited to Europe
b. Globally, non-European peoples became state subject and denied the right to their own sovereignty
2. End of religious wars in Europe
a. Conflicts primarily over secular concerns like territory
3. Birth of state sovereignty laid foundation for anarchic era and consequences
a. Realist issues of self-help, security dilemmas, and war
b. State sovereignty and nonintervention in internal affairs
D. Balance-of-Power System
1. Primitive security to punish states from violating each other’s sovereignty
2. Self-regulating balance of power system
a. Deterring rising states by other states forming temporary alliances
b. States acting out of self-interest inherently maintained peace internationally
3. French Revolution of 1789
a. Viewed by monarchs as a direct threat to their power and legitimacy
b. Model for alternative form of government
4. Napoleonic Wars
a. Ended illusion of a cooperative commitment to state sovereignty, collective security, and balance of power
b. Napoleon’s success and warfare necessitated European powers to craft a postwar settlement to bring peace and stability
II. 1815: Concert of Europe
A. Congress of Vienna
1. Great powers of Europe gathered to settle postwar territorial issues and establish a better system to avoid war
2. Quadruple alliance
a. Great Britain, Russia, Austria, Prussia
3. Concert model
a. Relied on collective oversight and maintenance of the balance of powers
b. 1815 Concert of Europe informal rules and norms of behavior
i. Great powers have collective responsibility for overseeing territorial decisions made in Vienna
ii. No changes to advantage of one power over others, as this will upset overall balance of power
4. Nineteenth-century peace in Europe
a. Key to order was maintenance of the balance of power among most significant states
C. Pax Britannica
1.Other than consensus by major powers to preserve the balance of power, Concert system needed an effective balancer state that would act militarily, if necessary, to preserve the balance
2. The Concert’s balancer state was Britain
a. Britain had a superior navy to act as an effective balancing state
b. Thus, nineteenth century seen as “Pax Britannica” or the “British Peace”
D. End of the Concert system
1. Rise of nationalism
a. Linked to growing demand for popular sovereignty
b. Expanding class of urban workers created by Industrial Revolution challenged ruling European monarchies
2. Competing alliances: Triple Alliance vs. Triple Entente
a. Triple Alliance
i. Austria-Hungary, unified Germany, unified Italy
b. Triple Entente
i. Britain, France, Russia
3. Imperial competition for colonies
a. Marxist scholars would add that the competition over colonies by European powers was perhaps the primary cause of war
4. The unfolding of World War I
a. Historians divided over which factors best explain the causes of WWI but are agreed that it was the worst war in human history up to that point
III. 1919: The Experiment in Collective Security
A. Rejection of the Balance of Power
1. Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points addressed to U.S. Congress
a. Point 14 called for formation of “a general association of nations” that would provide basis for order in the international system
i. Requirement to first seek peaceful means
ii. The state that violates the rights of another faces combined force of society—collective efforts of states confronting the aggressor
2. Collective security
a. Approach to order where a global coalition of states agree to act collectively to repel aggression against another state in the international system
b. Collective society differs from balance of power in three main ways:
i. Assumes that stability results from disequilibrium of power in favor of peaceful nations
ii. Eschews such competitive alliances of balance of power systems in favor of one grand alliance of peaceful nations
iii. Creates a collective organization of states with rights, obligations, and power to monitor and regulate behavior of individual states in matters of war and peace
3. Idealism
a. Wilsonian proposals labeled idealistic by realist critics
b. Idealism became effectively associated with naïvity and utopian vision
4. Treaty of Versailles
B. League of Nations
1. International law
a. Purpose was to promote international cooperation, peace, and security
i. “By the firm establishment of the understandings of international law as the actual rule of conduct [for] governments.”
2. League council
a. Aggression against any member of the League met by collective response from all other members
b. Obligated to replace “self-help” with international cooperation
3. Failures of the League of Nations
a. Concert vs. League of Nations tenuously different
i. Differed by formality of a permanent organization established to maintain peace
b. Helped diffuse some disputes only between minor powers
4. The unfolding of WWII
a. Second war of great powers occurred only two decades after WWI
b. Failures of League due to several factors
i. Absence of key international states from membership (Germany, Russia, Italy, Japan, and US)
c. Fundamental criticism of collective security itself
i. Formal organization unnecessary when issues could be addressed on an ad hoc basis, similar to how the Concert operated
IV. 1945: The Postwar Bipolar System
A. Re-emergence of Realism and Balance of Power Politics
1. Three options of balance of power for WWII victors to consider:
a. Classical balance of power politics from eighteenth century
b. Reworking the concert system from nineteenth century
c. Revised approach to balance of power based on spheres of influence
B. Spheres of Influence
1. Key parts of the world placed under the influence of one of the great powers
a. Each of the great powers, through mutual agreement, acquired sole responsibility and free reign to handle its sphere independently
2. Roosevelt skeptical this approach would stymie great powers’ urge to expand beyond their spheres of influence
C. The Four Policemen
1. New concert based on a consortium of four allied powers
a. United States, Great Britain, Soviet Union, and China
b. With sense of common purpose, maintain order and stability and prevent emergence of new powers that upset the status quo
D. Yalta Conference
a. 1945 conference where the United States and Britain accepted the reality of Soviet dominance in eastern half of Europe
b. Dumbarton Oaks
E. The United Nations (UN)
1. Marriage of liberalism and realism
a. Resurrected League to form a global organization with authority to monitor war and peace among states
2. UN Security Council
a. Empowered to use force to deter and respond to countries that violate international peace and security
b. Permanent members
i. United States, USSR, Britain, France, and China
c. Looked to the great powers as key to peace and assumed that great powers could act “in concert” based on shared commitment to order and stability
i. Done via a permanent international organization vs. the former ad hoc meetings and congresses of nineteenth-century Europe
D. Cold War
1. Period of crisis and tension that began shortly after WWII and lasted through the end of the 1980s
a. Called the “cold war” because direct military conflict between the United States and Soviet Union was avoided
b. Former European colonies acquired sovereignty, the United States and Soviet Union engaged in global competition for influence
i. As direct military confrontation between U.S. and USSR was too dangerous, confrontation occurred indirectly via proxy wars
2. Nuclear weapons
a. United States acquired the atom bomb in 1945 and used it twice on Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki to bring Pacific war to an end
b. USSR acquired nuclear weapons in 1949
3. Cuban missile crisis (1962)
a. Two-week period of extreme tension after discovery of offensive Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba
b. Meant to offset strategic nuclear advantage of the United States
i. U.S. weapons base in Turkey and numerous other capable sites
ii. USSR lacked bases in Western Hemisphere and had limited intercontinental capability
c. USSR ultimately backed down in exchange for U.S. promise not to invade Cuba and other concessions
4.Nixon and Kissinger’s legacy: détente
a. Nixon attempted new policy of détente to relax U.S.-Soviet tensions
b. Increased U.S.-Soviet trade and educational and cultural exchanges
c. First SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) signed in 1972 by Nixon and Brezhnev
i. Limited the number of offensive nuclear arms each side could possess and sharply restricted deployment of nuclear missile defense systems
5.Sino-Soviet split
a. Soviet and Chinese troops were engaging in border skirmishes in the late 1960s, though it was originally assumed there would be a treaty
6. Ronald Reagan and the end of the Cold War
a. Reagan’s election in 1980 symbolized end of the détente
i. Right-wing critics of détente (including Reagan) argued that it placed too much trust in Soviet leaders to live up to arms control agreements and led to abandonment of allies
E. Why the Cold War Never Turned Hot
1. Realists suggest the non-action of the Cold War had two key explanations:
a. Bipolarity provides a more predictable and stable balance of power in which each power has too much to lose by war
b. Nuclear weapons raised the stakes for both sides and transformed bipolar balance of power into bipolar “balance of terror” in which war would obliterate both sides
V. 1989: The Post-Cold War Era
A. Dissolution of the Soviet Union
1. Gorbachev policies of Perestroika and Glasnost
a. Perestroika (economic restructuring) policy introduced elements of free market economy within Communist system
b. Glasnost (openness) policy allowed for relaxation of state media censorship and increased access to information
2. Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989
a. Post WWII, Germany had been divided into two countries
i. Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) was a democracy tied to the United States and western European neighbors
ii. German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was governed by a Communist regime and allied with USSR
b. Breaching of the wall by hundreds of thousands of East German protesters culminated the process of political change Gorbachev had created with reforms in late 1980s
c. In 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the Soviet Union dissolved, ending Communist rule over the Soviet Union’s 15 republics, which then became independent states
B. The End of Bipolarity
1. Unipolarity
a. Collapse of the USSR left the United States the dominant power
b. Ties into hegemonic stability theory that predicts unipolar periods tend to be more stable and peaceful insofar as the hegemon has the ability to establish and defend rules of international system
C. Globalization
1. Critics of realism suggested other factors:
a. Expansion of global trade and investment and incorporation of countries in interconnected global economic system produced an era of unprecedented global prosperity in 1990s
b. Economic interaction carried political and cultural spillover as global commerce and technologies (e.g., the Internet) helped bring cultures into closer contact
D. Democratization
1. Number of countries governed by democratic regimes expanded to all-time high
2. Trend began in 1970s as democracy occurred first in Southern Europe and spread to Latin America, parts of Asia and Africa, and then post-Communist states of Eastern Europe and former USSR
E. The Challenge to Realism
1. Liberal institutionalism and an empowered United Nations
a. Liberal institutinalists argued that the end of the Cold War would allow the UN to became a guarantor of order and security for the first time
2. The Emergence of Constructivism
a. In explaining the end to the Cold War, constructivists argued that liberal and realist explanations fell short
b. Constructivists claim the end of the Cold War depended on diffusion of new ways of thinking about IR that influenced policies of key actors
VI. 2001: The World After 9/11
A. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, what changed?
1. For Americans, things changed a great deal
a. Brought the post-Cold War optimism to a sudden halt
b. Eroded American sense of invulnerability
c. Led to the rise of neoconservatives
B. Neoconservatism and Preemptive War
1. American neoconservatives argued democracy had to be exported – militarily if necessary
a. Without UN approval, the United States initiated a preemptive war against Iraq in 2003
i. Ostensibly to eliminate threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and to facilitate Iraqi democratization
b. 2002 U.S. National Security Strategy notable for emphasis on U.S. right to act unilaterally and preemptively if necessary to prevent another 9/11
C. A “Post-Post-Cold War” era?
1. The events of 9/11 can be argued to represent deep-rooted changes to the international system that have been increasingly debated among international scholars
2. A new multipolarity?
a. Multipolarity: an international system with three or more dominant powers
b. Evidence of balancing against U.S. dominance, though not a formal anti-American alliance
i. Long-term increases in China’s military spending
ii. A more assertive Russian foreign policy (e.g., eastern Ukraine & Crimea)
iii. Iran and nuclear weapons and growing influence in the Middle East
iv. North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and missiles
v. Anti-American policies of former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and his successors
3. A decline in American hard and soft power?
a. Soft power is the ability to influence others via attraction rather than coercion
i. Culture
ii. Political values
iii. Legitimacy of foreign policy
iv. Economic crisis beginning in 2008
v. Inability of U.S. political systems to respond effectively
vi. Global unpopularity of American Middle East policy
D. The End of Eurocentrism?
1. History of modern international relations often written with Europe at the epicenter with a long history of European colonization and domination around the world
E. A Backlash to Democratization and Globalization?
1. All the above have led to reconsideration of popular 1990s view that democratization and globalization are unstoppable waves of the future